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There is a website called FlightRadar24 that tracks online flight traffic. FlightRadar has been called “the best live flight tracker that shows air traffic in real time.” The much-visited site is popular with pilots and airline hobbiests.

On the day Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 disappeared, FlightRadar24 caught something that only a few wonky web-watchers spotted. They naturally posted it onlne for others to ponder.

En route to China, MH370 (identified as MAS370 on the FlightRadar system) is shown to vanish from the radar map. The statistics bar on the left side of the map reports a change in altitude—from 37,000 to 0 feet. This “anomaly” occurred at about the point where the Malaysian Military subsequently placed the aircraft before it reportedly “went silent” and veered southwest, away from its intended route.

Inexplicably, the next day, FlightRadar24 appears to have posted to new “version” of the flight. In this second radar track, the flight icon reappears on the screen, but it then undergoes some radical changes in direction and climbs more than 10,000 feet in altitude. The plane eventually returns to its regular 37,000-foot cruising altitude and course—and proceeds north, past the coast of Vietnam.

Later in the flight, MH370 appears to be closely trailed by another, faster-moving plane. As the radar track continues, another aircraft 30 minutes ahead of 370 suddenly disappears from the screen. Shortly afterwards, the flight icon for MH370 vanishes for the second time, due south from the Chinese island of Hainan. Location: latitude 17.67; longitude 110.32.